


A Short Contemplation

by orphan_account



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, POV Kim Seungmin, References to Drugs, and jeongin is his brother, and minho and chan are his parents, could be considered angsty but it's not really, please read the tags, seungmin is a teenager, some stuff that could be considered neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27483244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They, meaning Jeongin and Minho, are arguing again.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Kim Seungmin & Lee Minho | Lee Know, Kim Seungmin & Yang Jeongin | I.N, Lee Minho | Lee Know & Yang Jeongin | I.N
Kudos: 17





	A Short Contemplation

**Author's Note:**

> In case you didn't read the tags:
> 
> \- READ THE TAGS!!
> 
> \- This is from Seungmin's perspective
> 
> \- Seungmin is a teenager, Jeongin is his younger brother who is a year younger
> 
> \- Minho and Chan are their parents
> 
> \- For some reason the tags won't let me add to them, but this includes mentions of verbal abuse and/or manipulation
> 
> \- AGAIN, READ THE TAGS!!! This could be potentially triggering
> 
> I've used skz's names, but please know that they are not in any way associated with this. These are characters, not representations of what I think of skz

They're arguing again.

They, meaning Jeongin and Minho. 

In the beginning, I might've actually been bothered to interfere, to keep the peace. 

But the beginning was months ago. Or maybe it was years? Perhaps it was weeks; I can't remember anymore. All I know is that this is the new normal, and the grating sound of raised voices is just as much of an everyday occurrence as brushing my teeth in the morning.

People around me might point fingers at Minho, declaring him as an abuser, a helicopter parent, a narcissist. I'm not saying those descriptors aren't true, but they're why I can't really tell anyone about this. It's dysfunctional, but I can survive in this environment and Jeongin can too and so there's no point in fostering unnecessary concern in my friends and online acquaintances. Chan is slightly worse off, maybe; he has to live with Minho for the rest of his life. Unless Minho actually goes through with that divorce he's always talking so much about. 

When I was younger, I pleaded with him not to do it. "It'll give us," us meaning me and Jeongin, "trauma. You can't do it." Nine years old, I stared up at him from where I sat on the carpet. 

I know better now. I don't pretend to understand Chan completely but I know I'm much more similar to him than I am to Minho. How must he feel, knowing that Minho married him because his genes were good? Because he was strong, handsome, and smart. As little hope as I have for my future happiness, I have even less hope for his. At least the only thing tethering me back home once I become an adult is my own guilt.

I don't think they love each other. Some of my friends, well-meaning I'm sure, reassure me that what my parents say in the heat of the moment is not what they actually mean. And yes, there's truth to that. But they also don't live in my house. They don't know that I've never heard Minho say that he loves Chan, or the other way around. They don't know that the only time my parents spend together is when they sleep. They don't know that more often than not, a true conversation between them will devolve into an argument that ends with Chan leaving the room or breaking something.

Minho is… complicated. It's perhaps cliche to say that all humans are complicated, and there are shades to everyone, but what I find among so many of my peers is that they only say that of the people they like, the people that they're willing to offer a chance to. Actually, that's probably true of all of us - if you're not willing to understand, you can never truly see beyond black and white. Even me on my moral high horse might be black to them, if they truly knew my worst thoughts and actions. 

Anyways, back to Minho. He's persistent, determined, strong, unyielding, smart. Growing up in Korea, he was always the one that dared. Dared to play outside when the teacher told him not to. Dared to try for an American graduate school even when everyone around him told him that he couldn't make it. He's incredibly hard-working by nature. Responsible, too. When he cares about something, he cares  _ so much _ . 

He's elitist, narcissistic, insensitive. "Controlling! Abusive!" Chan spit on one memorable occasion, in English too. Disrespectful for someone who always talks about the importance of respect. Insecure, but unsympathetic to others' insecurities because they aren't the "right" things to be insecure about. 

We both have limited worldviews, but our worldviews are different. He calls me young and immature for not seeing the same world he does, but he doesn't seem to understand that there are things I see that he does not, either.

("Some STEM program kids smoke weed," I said, in an effort to give him a reality check about the supposed holistic superiority of STEM program students.

"Really?" he asked, shaken. "Wow, that's scary. This would never happen in Korea. Even in the STEM program? America is such a mess."

I don't think it's realistic that there's no underage drug use in Korea, but I don't have any concrete numbers so I didn't bother arguing. At least, he hopefully realizes that there's more to the world than just those who make an income in the top 1%.

Does he know that lots of kids join gangs because they feel unloved by their families?)

For someone who complains about communication, or lack thereof, of me and Chan, he's pretty bad at communicating. Our problem is that we don't communicate; his is that he doesn't communicate effectively, which might as well be the same thing in the end. 

In the past, when I disappointed him, he asked me to consider his feelings. Consider how bad he would feel if all his hard work for helping us become the best went down the drain, and we ended up on the streets with a drug addiction. How bad he feels that he can't brag about us the way parents of exceptional children do. How bad he would feel if I amounted to nothing; if I didn't end up extraordinary, what was the point of raising me in the first place?

Luckily for him, emotions is a language I'm quite fluent in (maybe more than him; he can speak it fine, but his listening skills are somewhat nonexistent; a conversation is difficult), and I'm especially receptive to disappointment. Or perhaps I'm receptive to disappointment because I've been exposed to so much of it, and it wore my walls down to where I didn't know they existed in the first place. In the end, it doesn't matter - his disappointment was able to influence preteen Seungmin to try his best to please him. 

Teenager Seungmin is just as receptive to disappointment, but now, at least, I can recognize manipulation for what it is. Or maybe my priorities shifted, maybe now I'm prioritizing the future I want over the future he wants. I don't even know what future I want, but I'm absolutely sure it doesn't line up with his goals. Teenager Seungmin is either fiercely empathetic or completely cold. Caring too much or not caring at all.

Jeongin, though, is not really receptive to emotion at all. When we were young this was a point of contention between us - he loved arguments because he loved to win, and I hated them because they triggered a lot of negative emotion, and I'd usually end up crying and screaming. In recent years our relationship has improved, in part because we don't spend as much time together, in part because I have matured enough to understand more of why he operates the way he does. I think he's also grown - he doesn't try to pick fights as often. He's growing up now, and it's hard, and I wish him luck. It's hard, especially in the kind of environment we live in.

Minho understands both more and less about Jeongin than I do. They're more similar in personality than I am with either of them.

But still, similarities don't help if they don't use them to their advantage. This is patronizing, but Jeongin is still somewhat immature. Why should he care that Minho is so, so disappointed in him (as he so constantly reminds him)? He wants to be good, but in a vague way, not the clear fire that Minho expected out of both of us. What benefit would there be in becoming a goody-two shoes? Minecraft is much more important than turning a piece of homework in on time when you know late homework will be accepted without penalty.

And there's the difference between them. Minho does things as soon as possible, Jeongin does things at the very last minute. They could coexist quite peacefully if Minho wasn't so, so responsible; he could be considered a control freak. He feels that anxiety right before the deadline  _ all the time _ , from the moment something is assigned. He is more worried about my homework than I am, which is saying something, because I get pretty anxious too. Still, I have a history of good grades in school - my last overall grade below an A was in seventh grade. 

Jeongin does not have such a record, and now that he's in high school, his grades are "actually important now." So, when Minho caught his slipping grades due to him neglecting his homework, he took action.

Games. That was their main argument topic. Jeongin does play games an excessive amount, and Minho hates this. He likens his game addiction to a drug addiction. He sees Jeongin's inability to stop playing as a sign that if the time comes, he will not be able to resist drugs either.

(I'm not sure how much truth this holds. Drugs are incredibly powerful; would self-discipline really be enough? But I also think that if anyone would be able to break free of addiction through sheer willpower, it would be Minho.)

One memorable day, Minho and Jeongin got into another argument.

"If you don't finish your homework, there won't be food for you," Minho yelled.

"Fine," Jeongin replied.

At dinner, Jeongin sat there. We had burgers that evening. But he didn't touch his burger, despite loving burgers, despite having the biggest appetite in the family. When Minho arrived at the dinner table, he glanced at Jeongin, and then said, so lightly, "Why is he here? There's no food for him here." 

Jeongin looked at him with such dead eyes. Somehow, that scared me much more than any loud outburst could have. 

They stared at each other, for maybe a minute, before he wordlessly put his burger on Minho's plate and left the dinner table to go back to his room. I heard him rearranging his furniture to barricade his door upstairs.

For a few reasons, I cried a lot at this. I refused to eat until Minho left the dinner table, in some strange show of solidarity (and an expression of my disapproval).

Later, Minho came to me to ask why I had cried so much. I wouldn't explain, because I've interacted with him enough to know that he would try to change how I viewed it, and I knew it would ultimately be a waste of time and tears. So he assumed, incorrectly, that I cried because I saw Jeongin go without food.

To him, this is how it works. Jeongin's already proving to be on the wrong path by playing so much in favor of doing homework. This wrong path leads to a minimum wage job, to struggling to pay rent every month.

"You feel bad for him because he went without food. How do you think I'll feel if this becomes his life? If he had to skip meals every day and struggle to pay rent? I would feel just as you do, but for the rest of my life." 

So to prevent that from happening, Minho yells at him. He tries to change Jeongin's path, desperately, because to him, Jeongin's headed for disaster.

(Of course, this is a relative judgement. We are fortunate enough that I know I wouldn't need to work too hard to be stable financially, and this is true for Jeongin as well.)

So today they argue again. They usually argue at least 3 times a day, usually consisting of Minho ranting at Jeongin and Jeongin misdirecting him with tangentially related arguments in order to prove him wrong. 

I've long closed my heart to their arguments. I don't even cry when I hear them argue so loudly anymore. This is something that they need to communicate over and compromise on. I tried interfering before, but that only makes them stop arguing. The problem isn't solved. All my presence does is prevent them from reaching an understanding. So I harden my heart, and turn up my music. I can still faintly hear them over the cheerful beats of Twice's newest album.

Today the argument is pretty bad. Both of them are crying, which is rare, especially from Jeongin. Both of them have screamed so much that their voices are hoarse. I hate it, but I can't interfere. Peace is less important than communication, even if I want to cry every time they argue, despite my best efforts to ignore them.

All I can do is fret quietly behind a closed door. 


End file.
